


Riddle Me This, Mr Holmes

by ancientreader



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:00:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23396644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientreader/pseuds/ancientreader
Summary: Watson has, to Holmes’s entirely reasonable dismay, left London to visit a newly discovered cousin; however, he has means by which to trouble Holmes in his absence.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 36
Kudos: 97
Collections: ACD Holmesfest Gift Exchange





	Riddle Me This, Mr Holmes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mistyzeo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyzeo/gifts).



> Written as a pinch-hit gift for [mistyzeo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyzeo) in the 2020 [acdholmesfest](https://acdholmesfest.dreamwidth.org/) exchange. 
> 
> Lightning beta by [TSylvestris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TSylvestris) and my long-suffering spouse: many thanks to both of you!

Calm and rationality have ever been my watchwords, and my attachment to Watson is and has always been perfectly reasonable. He is not unintelligent, so he provides an acceptable sounding-board when I am working through a number of lines of thought concerning a case. He is appreciative of the violin, although he sometimes insists on hearing music-hall tunes that bring Mrs Hudson and Wiggins and even the tweeny into our sitting-room to form a sort of domestic gathering. I was never formerly subject to these.  
  
He is a balm when I —  
  
He is a physician, whose skills have proven convenient more than once given the risks attendant on my profession.  
  
I could continue reciting the benefits of his presence at Baker Street, but the fact is that at the date of which I write he had most inconveniently learned of the existence of an adult cousin, a married woman living in Hertfordshire, and had gone haring off to visit her, wittering on about how glad he was to have discovered he had living family and so on and so forth. It was tiresome, the more so because the season was late winter and the flat was cold.  
  
Still worse, he seemed to feel it incumbent upon him to find means of harassing me during the week he passed in the familial embrace. I now recite the roster of his offenses, which he committed partly by proxy ( _id est:_ Wiggins), partly by telegram, and at last _in propria persona._  
  
**Day 1 post-departure.**  
  
I was roused at an early hour from my study of the fungi of Aberdeen by Mrs Hudson, who had admitted Wiggins. The urchin presented me with a parcel containing flour, from which protruded a slip of paper, cut out of _The Strand,_ on which were printed the words “my first.”  
  
I quizzed Wiggins at length: From whom had he received the flour? When? Where? All he could tell me was that he had found it just outside the door of the room he shared with two of the other Irregulars, and that he had immediately brought it to me for inspection.  
  
There being little more to be made of this cryptic communication, if indeed it was a communication, I deemed it best to wait upon events.  
  
Two hours later, there came a telegram from Watson:  
  
NOT IN RYE.   
  
Not in Rye! I knew perfectly well that Watson was not in Rye; he was, in fact, in the village of Aldbury.  
  
YES I KNOW,   
  
I sent him, in some irritation. There was, it transpired, little of interest to be said concerning the fungi of Aberdeen.  
  
**Day 2 post-departure.**  
  
Having moved on from the fungi of Aberdeen, I was deeply absorbed in the geology of Wales, with specific reference to the Jurassic limestone along the Glamorgan coast, when Mrs Hudson once again admitted Wiggins, this time bearing, of all things, a flask of water. This too was accompanied by a slip of paper, tucked into the neck of the flask, and bearing printed words: “my second.” Not from _The Strand,_ but from _The Idler._  
  
Though I interrogated him closely, I could not discover that Wiggins had observed anything of moment. He hung his head and swore to do better, “because you been doing your best to train up all us Irregulars, Mr Holmes, and we always want to do our best in return, like.”  
  
“Fine words butter no parsnips, Wiggins,” I told him. I meant to review the fundamentals of careful observation, but we were interrupted by the arrival of a telegram from Watson, and by the time I had read it and written out a reply, Wiggins had absconded.  
  
NOT IN DRY,   
  
Watson had sent.  
  
WHAT ARE YOU ABOUT,   
  
I returned. To which the reply came within the hour:  
  
WAIT AND SEE.   
  
It was really very bad of Watson to distract me from my studies. I donned my warmest coat and made for the Diogenes Club, with a view to sitting quietly in the company of others who were also sitting quietly. Later, Mycroft and I made dinner of a joint and some roast potatoes, and I returned to Baker Street quite late.  
  
**Day 3 post-departure.**

By now, of course, I knew to expect some jape or other, to be delivered by Wiggins on Watson’s behalf with the attendant disingenuous professions of ignorance. Indeed, just after breakfast my reading of Hans Goldschmidt’s paper upon the thermite reaction was interrupted by that young reprobate, in possession of a pair of bellows.  
  
I interrupted his fumbling about at the valve. “Never mind that, Wiggins. There’s a slip of paper inside bearing the words ‘my third,’ is there not?”  
  
“Yes sir, Mr Holmes.”  
  
I sent him away with a shilling or two and retained the bellows, as our old one was showing signs of wear. Watson had been complaining about it.  
  
The anticipated telegram arrived even before I had finished with Goldschmidt’s paper:  
  
NOT IN CRY,   
  
to which I returned  
  
IS THIS RIDDLE MEANT TO BE IMPENETRABLE,   
  
to which Watson replied,  
  
HARDLY,   
  
to which it was not possible to return any answer that would not lead to our immediate arrests, so I laid out the pieces of the puzzle so far and returned to the thermite reaction. **  
  
Day 4 post-departure.  
  
**Watson has always had the gift of goading me into high spirits.  
  
“Well, Wiggins, what is it today?” I inquired when that Irregular manifested himself as expected.  
  
“It” proved to be a meticulously painted wooden model of the eye, made in accordance with the most recent discoveries. The usual slip of paper (“my fourth,” _Review of Reviews_ ) was rolled tightly and fastened within the “o” of the word “rod” within the legend on the model’s base.  
  
I looked narrowly at Wiggins, and found that I had to congratulate myself on my success in teaching him the art of feigning nonchalance that is so essential to the detective. Mycroft had sent over a basket of tropical fruit, including a pine-apple; Wiggins having never previously encountered this botanical form, I deemed it helpful to his further education to learn how to dissect one, and sent him away with the guts of the thing, instructing him to do whatever he liked with it.  
  
Watson’s telegram arrived somewhat later than the previous three, which was perhaps as well.  
  
PAGE 53. NEVER IN  
  
led me to a certain volume of literature, a particular favorite of ours. I felt sure Watson could be referring to nothing else, and while I remembered what word appeared on page 53 — appeared quite alone, owing to the poor quality of the book’s printing — I thought it best to check.  
  
I was correct. The word was “whip.”  
  
ASSISTANCE REQUIRED UPON YOUR RETURN,   
  
I sent in reply, the implement in question being poorly suited to unaccompanied use, and added the new pieces to the puzzle I was assembling. There would be, of course, eight in all, one for each of the eight days of Watson’s absence. So far I had:  
  
in flour / not in Rye  
in water / not in dry  
in bellows / not in cry  
in rod / never in whip  
  
On reflection, I thought (2) would be “wet,” not “water,” as making a closer parallel with “dry,” and similarly, in (3) the bellows had simply been the closest Watson could come to clueing “bellow” without deafening me. But as for anything further, I was chagrined to find myself at a loss.  
**  
Day 5 post-departure.**

Mr Elston Wing, the solicitor, called early, having some purported gem-stones he wished me to examine; they were fakes, which rendered the inheritance of the Duke of L——’s second son rather moot, but supplied me with a witness to the extraordinary spectacle of Wiggins racing pell-mell around the sitting room, dropping the usual slip of paper ( _The Bookman_ ) into my tea, that being the last of the pot, and racing out again.  
  
“Come back for your shilling,” I called after him.  
  
He returned more swiftly, if possible, than he had arrived.  
  
“I suppose it’s ‘running,’ today?” I asked.  
  
“Yes sir.”  
  
“On your way out ask Mrs Hudson to send up a fresh pot of tea, and mind where you drop the paper tomorrow.”  
  
Mr Wing was naturally perplexed by these events; I told him that Wiggins was my apprentice, and he was satisfied. One so often has occasion to observe how many people are willing to accept, as an explanation for unusual behavior, a statement which is nothing of the sort.  
  
NEVER IN SKIP,   
  
said Watson’s telegram, arriving later that morning. The solution of the puzzle having come to me, I amused myself by participating, though I had to concede the greater cleverness of the original’s wordplay:  
  
ALTERNATIVELY. ALWAYS SUING NEVER SHOEING.   
  
**Day 6 post-departure.**  
  
The sixth day of Watson’s absence was a Sunday, and Wiggins did not appear. This was owing to the fact that a Benevolent Society had taken an interest in him of late; the interest was not, strictly speaking, mutual, but one of the benevolent persons had a daughter for the sake of whose _beaux yeux_ Wiggins suffered through interminable sermons. Apparently biscuits also manifested themselves along with the young lady; these twin enticements he all too predictably found irresistible.  
  
I had expressed to Watson some impatience at this frivolity, but he in turn taxed me with hypocrisy. I own that the circumstances under which I made my complaint may have diminished its force.  
  
I was preparing to resume work on my monograph concerning the beetles of the Thames estuary when Mrs Hudson brought in my breakfast; on removing the lid from my bacon I found myself in possession of _six_ rashers and a nautical commemorative plate depicting, in migrainously bright colors — a _yawl._  
  
So Watson had suborned not only the chiefest of my Irregulars but also our landlady. There was one possible means of retaliation, and that was to pre-empt his telegram. Accordingly, I sent, express,  
  
NEVER IN SHIP,   
  
which earned me, an hour later,  
  
DO NOT IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE SPOILING MY FUN.   
  
Earlier in the month, I had been preparing a composition of my own, but had set it aside in favor of a more urgent project, the close examination of some specimens of mica obtained in the Scottish Highlands. I now resumed my work on the Nocturne.  
  
**Day 7 post-departure.**  
  
Watson, that miscreant, stole a march on me: his telegram arrived before Wiggins, before breakfast, even before I had had time to absorb myself in Jean-Pierre Mégnin’s fascinating work on cadaveric entomology:  
  
GOOD MORNING. NOT IN MISS.   
  
Wiggins appeared in mid-morning and, having handed me a copy of _Shooting Times,_ availed himself of toast and eggs. “We’re all looking forward to seeing the Doctor again, Mr Holmes,” he said, with his characteristic indistinctness. It has not yet been possible to teach him not to talk with his mouth full.  
  
A page of the _Shooting Times_ was folded over; upon opening it, I found myself learning what to do in case of a weapon’s _misfire,_ that word being circled. The advice given in the article was sound, with the exception of one or two small points which, if followed, would invariably result in the serious wounding of the unhappy reader. I immediately wrote a lengthy correction and sent Wiggins off to post it.  
  
That afternoon I took tea with Mycroft at the Diogenes Club. In the evening, I played the Nocturne through two or three times and was able to find it satisfactory.  
  
**Day 8 post-departure.**  
  
Watson arrived at about noon, a day earlier than we had expected him. “Well?” he said when the cabman had set down his luggage in our sitting room. “Did you enjoy my riddling?”  
  
I pointed out that the riddle, having eight parts, was not yet complete.  
  
“Indeed it’s not,” he agreed. “Here, then: ‘My eighth is in ecstasy, but not in — ’”  
  
“Really, John, is this a riddle, or a charade?” I asked, when the demonstration had concluded.  
  
That evening, I played him the Nocturne, and he professed himself delighted.

**Author's Note:**

> I found Watson’s riddle [here](http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/quiet-hours-with-the-quick-witted-riddles.html). It’s from _Good Housekeeping,_ March 2, 1889, p. 214; I tweaked it slightly for the purposes of the story. 
> 
> My first is in Flour but not in Rye,  
> My second is in Wet but not in Dry,  
> My third is in Bellow but not in Cry;  
> My fourth is in Rod but never in Whip,  
> My fifth is in Running but never in Skip,  
> My sixth is in Yawl but never in Ship;  
> My seventh is in ~~Error~~ [Misfire] but not in Miss  
>  ~~My eight is in Ecstasy not in Bliss,--~~  
>  [My eighth is in Ecstasy but not in Kiss.]  
>  ~~My whole, alas, for its cold, cold kiss!~~
> 
> The answer is FEBRUARY.
> 
> All the periodicals mentioned were current during the mid-1890s.  
> [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf-vITuCas8)'s a video of the thermite reaction; Goldschmidt discovered it in 1893 and patented it in 1895.  
> I made up the fungi of Aberdeen, but there is Jurassic limestone along the Glamorgan coast, mica has been found in the Scottish Highlands (anachronistically, though), and Jean-Pierre Mégnin was a pioneer of forensic entomology. SH was reading _La faune des cadavres: application de l'entomologie à la médecine légale_ (Paris: G. Masson [1894]), which you can also read [here](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.%24b214268&view=1up&seq=9), if your French is good enough, which mine sure isn't, but there are books about forensic entomology in English and it really is pretty damn cool.  
> 


End file.
